


An Effort Towards Wholeness

by walkwithursus



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Amputation, Blood and Gore, Gen, Loss of Limbs, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 16:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14918739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkwithursus/pseuds/walkwithursus
Summary: “He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud.”- Victor HugoAs theBlack Pearlsinks, Barbossa is forced to make a terrible choice.





	An Effort Towards Wholeness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stormvoël (BushRat8)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BushRat8/gifts).



It is evening off the coast of Hispaniola when the _Black Pearl_ first comes under attack. 

Her adversary is a three-masted frigate, well-armed, massive, and riding low in the water. Captain Barbossa orders the death’s head run up, but no sooner has the flag reached the top of its mast that they are met with one of red in the distance, and the thunderous reverberation of the enemy’s twelve-pounders as they fire in unison upon the _Pearl._

The first broadside is staggering. Every one of the frigate’s shots hits its mark with supernatural precision, splintering the masts and downing four of the _Pearl’s_ gunners. An envoy from the gun deck alerts the captain to damage at the waterline, just before the next volley unloads and sinks a round shot into his stomach. 

In the thick of battle there is no rush to retrieve the man’s corpse; the surgeon is either dead, dying or otherwise occupied. Barbossa steps over the body to spot the rival captain through his spyglass, and his blood runs cold. Thick tendrils of smoke cast the man’s face in grey shadow, while embers glow like coals in an enormous black beard. The undead surround him on all sides, mates and crew obeying silent orders like stringed puppets. 

With a curse, Barbossa collapses his glass and gives the order to drop canvas. If the rumors are to be believed, the _Pearl_ has but one advantage against the _Queen Anne’s Revenge,_ and it is that one advantage that may yet save their immortal souls. Though they may not be able to best the damned, the _Black Pearl_ surely can outrun them. 

The revised orders are never carried out. The excitement in the ensuing chaos quickly turns to terror as the rigging of the _Black Pearl_ comes to life, ensnaring the crew and rendering the majority of the men immobile. Barbossa calls for courage as they wait in knots to be boarded, but the planks never fall. The _Revenge_ continues to fire from both decks until the _Black Pearl_ is obliterated, a great ship turned to kindling and sinking slowly into the sea. 

The screams of the dying ring in Barbossa’s ears, but when at last the barrage lets up there is silence. The _Queen Anne’s Revenge_ does not celebrate as a victorious vessel ought, and it is that more than anything that sets Barbossa’s skin to crawling as she slips away in the water, leaving a floating graveyard in her wake. 

Barbossa ignores the rope that clings to his leg until the last man in his line of sight falls still. And then he is on it, sawing and slashing and chopping away as the weather deck below floods with water. No ordinary rope could withstand a single blow from Barbossa’s blade, let alone the dozens he’s reigned down upon it. The rigging simply coils tighter, shooting pins and needles from his cramping thigh to his numbing toes, and as he hacks at it in desperation Barbossa curses the devil Edward Teach and his hellish vessel, and whatever malevolent God allowed their paths to cross this night. 

The rope holds fast. With a roar of frustration, Barbossa drives the point of his sword into the deck and collapses against the mast, letting his back slide all the way down until he rests seated on the planks. Frigid seawater instantly soaks through his breeches, but when he shivers it is not with cold, but with fear, for he knows what must be done. 

With clumsy, shaking hands, Barbossa drains his hip flask and unbuckles the baldric from across his chest. He straps it around his leg just under the knee, and pulls it tight until the flesh below turns mottled and puce. From within his sash he retrieves a dagger, thrust quickly aside in favor of its handsome leather sheath. He places it between his teeth, shoves it hard until the corners of his lips are splitting, and then brings the edge of his sword to the point just above where the rigging has hold of his leg. 

He begins the cut from the outside. The flesh of his calf separates like butter under a hot knife, but the bone is hard and unyielding, and takes a sharp drive of force to snap through. The grating sound of the blade is an unending assault on his ears, and by the time Barbossa strikes the second bone, four times as large as the first, he’s shedding fat tears and screaming around the leather guard in his mouth. He gnashes his teeth like an animal, and the waxy, sweet taste of the leather polish against his tongue soon gives way to the tang of blood. 

The water is inches deep now, nearly reaching the tops of his thighs, and despite the warm gush of blood it is ice cold. As soon as the leg is separated Barbossa pushes it away as far as his strength will allow, and reaches for the nearest lantern that hisses and sputters in the lashing rain. The bowl is half full of oil. He quickly douses the stump of his leg in the fluid as acrid bile floods his mouth. From his breast pocket he withdraws flint and steel, and after a couple of false starts his leg goes up, bathed in yellow flame from the base of the knee to the rough hewn edge of the wound. The heat is blistering, and the smell of the sizzling flesh is the best thing he hasn’t eaten in months at sea. 

The fire creeps up towards his thigh, following thin trails of oil that spilled forth unbidden from his trembling fingers. Before it can climb any higher Barbossa drops his leg back into the water, and the flame disappears with a splash of dead weight and a cloud of steam. The leather sheath tumbles from his mouth, and just in time, as the next second he vomits and collapses backwards against the mast. 

By the time Barbossa finds the strength to move again the water has overtaken his waist. The stump is pink and blistering, but the gush of blood has slowed to a sluggish, wet ooze. Charred debris floats by in the water. Barbossa knots the leg of his trousers just below the wound to keep it covered before clambering heavily to his one remaining foot.

It is painful to stand, and agony to walk one-legged toward the edge of the deck where the small boats were kept. A pile of splinters is all that remains, shattered by canon fire. Anger wells up in the captain’s chest, and with it comes the surge of adrenaline, for he would sooner swim than sink with the ship as Blackbeard intended. 

Smatterings of wreckage bob in the ocean, though nothing substantial enough to support his weight. A flash of lightning illuminates the scene, and Barbossa spies a cluster of barrels floating a few fathoms from the rail. 

There is no time to waste. The water below is sucking, roiling, as though the _Pearl_ could not sink fast enough. Removed of all but his shirt and breeches, Barbossa takes a swimmer’s breath and leaps overboard, slicing through the water like a bullet. One-legged kicks bring him to the surface, and after orienting himself he paddles furiously in the direction of the barrels. The waves are cruel, slapping his face and yanking him under, but though his body is weak his resolve is tireless, and far stronger than the sea. 

The barrels are strung together with a cord of rope. When at last he reaches them Barbossa knots the rope around his own waist and collapses his torso as far over one of the barrels as he can manage. Behind him, the _Black Pearl_ is creaking and groaning as she sinks. The quarter deck from which he commanded has disappeared below the surface, and as he watches her descent Barbossa weeps without tears, for he has none left to shed. 

Consciousness fades. 

A peal of thunder rouses Barbossa, and his eyes open reluctantly as a flash of white cuts across the star-strewn sky. There is a shape in the distance, in the opposite direction of the speck that is the _Queen Anne’s Revenge._ With every flash of lightning it grows closer, until Barbossa can make out the gaping maw of its figurehead through the sheet of rain. 

The captain comes to collect him directly. A rowboat off the _Flying Dutchman_ stops alongside the barrels, and William Turner extends his hand and supports Barbossa’s crawl over the side. Barbossa’s clothes are heavy and drenched with seawater, and when he collapses into the bottom of the boat his body makes a wet slapping sound. By the time he is able to open his eyes, Captain Turner has begun rowing back to the _Dutchman._

Barbossa twists to sit up, but the effort is staggering, as though a one-thousand pound weight sits on his chest. Resigned to the bottom of the boat, Barbossa gingerly lifts his right leg and elevates it on the vacant seat.

Captain Turner catches sight of the wound, and his oars slip. “Your leg,” he says, eyebrows knit together. 

Barbossa answers his concern with a grimace. “‘T’weren’t nothin’ I couldn’t live without,” he says, and the words ring true despite the nausea that flips in his belly like a fish. 

The _Dutchman_ looms closer with every strong glide of the oars. Behind them, the _Black Pearl_ has disappeared beneath the waves, leaving nothing but burning wreckage and columns of white smoke. Barbossa tears his eyes away from the spot where she was and addresses the _Dutchman’s_ captain. “I take it ye’re here to collect me crew.” 

Turner squints at him through the rain and gives a short, sharp nod. 

“How many survivors?” Barbossa asks.

The oars pause for a single beat as a wave crests beneath them, rocking the boat gently from side to side. “There are no survivors,” Turner says finally, and he takes up the rhythm of the oars again, shoulders rising and falling with every stroke. 

Barbossa reflects quietly. In the glaze of his eyes he can see crewmen hanging by their necks from the rigging, gunners peppered by birdshot or else impaled by splintered wood as thick around as a man’s arm. 

“Nay,” Barbossa says at last. “There be but one.”

Turner glances toward his face and then away with a shake of his head. “You’re dying, Barbossa,” he says gravely, nudging an elbow toward the uplifted stump of Barbossa’s leg. The knot of the pant leg came undone in the water, leaving the wound exposed to the salty air. 

With a strangled grunt Barbossa sits up and redoubles the knot, stronger and tighter than it was before. “Technically I’m _survivin’,_ ” he says grimly. 

Turner says nothing, and their journey continues in silence.

At last the prow of the boat strikes the _Dutchman's_ hull. A ladder waves in the breeze, and as Captain Turner places his boot upon the first rung Barbossa realizes that he must ascend one-legged, or be left behind to be claimed by the sea. 

He dares not linger. Not when he remains tethered to the world of the living, to a home far away, and to a purpose that has been solidifying in his mind since the moment his leg separated from the rest of his body. Until the demon Blackbeard has been driven back to the depths of hell from whence he came, Barbossa's soul may not rest. 

And so he climbs.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kindly consider leaving a kudos & comment.


End file.
